Olsen Kids, Early December

Remington was born a sports kid. His earliest favorite toy was balls, and he loved to throw them, roll them, chase them around, and watch them be thrown. Now that he is two, his interest in sports hasn't waned at all, it has grown with him.

His favorite game to play outside of Grace's school is invisible sports. The basic idea is that he names a sport, gives you and himself a position, and then you are supposed to act out that sport.

He knows most of the terms too, so in baseball you will either be the batter, pitcher, umpire or squatter (catcher). In football, he will designate the quarterback and receiver, and in soccer and hockey he will just say who is the goalie (and the other person has to try to score).

He isn't totally unfair either. Sometimes you get to hit the ball, score the goal, shoot the basket etc. Though most of the time, yes, he is the hero. As a goalie, the shots almost never go in, but as a shooter, they almost always do. In baseball, if you hit the ball, he usually manages to get you out with a tag or you hit a fly ball, and he caught it.

He frequently goes through multiple sports in a short period too. This morning we played some basketball, soccer, and baseball. When we picked Grace up, he fit in baseball, football, soccer and hockey. It is really easy to change sports when you use no equipment.

To be clear, he doesn't just play invisible sports. We have a sports friendly house, and on any given day, you will see Remington and whoever he convinces to play with him playing baseball, completely with bat, ball, glove and helmet, or hockey with the sticks, puck and net, or shooting at the big basketball net in the house. While Grace does soccer, he does too, aiming at another net, trying to score on Blake. Plus he has baseball guys and hockey guys that he imagines their games too.

When he isn't playing sports, he is using his healthy imagination in some other way. One favorite is fighting bad guys (balloons with faces on them) with light sabers, or cooking elaborate things at the play kitchen.

Grace has been very big into her babies lately, and don't try to add the word "doll" to that. They are her babies. For a long time, her favorite was a baby boy she named, "Joshua" and was very particular about having his diaper changed and his clothes changed for bed, changed back into regular clothes in the morning. But unfortunately all these tasks are still a bit challenging for Grace, which means that Blake and I got to do a lot of work taking care of this baby.

Then for a while she had two favorites, adding another doll, Scarlett (named after her cousin) to her (our) responsibilities for the day. But Joshua recently changed to Tina because of some doll tights she found.

Some might disagree with me, and I am not taking any side on the whole gender debate, but I drew the line at having "Joshua" wear the white tights with pink ballet slippers. I told Grace that she had to pick something else for her boy doll or start pretending that this doll was a girl. She really wanted a ballet outfit, so Joshua is currently "Tina."

She is the ringleader at playtime between the two of them, and frequently is the one who has the idea to pretend to drive to visit Santa, or go to the beach, or have a picnic, or any number of other things she cooks up in her imagination.

Naptimes are officially gone for her, but I have retained my naptime break through a hand me down tablet from my mother in law, and some kids games that she can play by herself during his nap (like right now). Her two favorites are a baby one, where you give the baby a bath, then get it dressed in any of a zillion outfits and then give it toys and take a picture, and a cake one, where you get to make an elaborate multi-layered cake, and decorate it with frostings and other random items.

They are both at fun ages, and most days, I cherish this time when they are still so small and cute. 

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Note-
I was searching back over my pictures, and I don't have a lot of the things I described above. They are the moments I want to remember, they are the times where I most see my kids shine their own unique lights, but I don't have many pictures of them.

The main reason for that boils down to two main things- 1- when I start to take a video, I ruin it. I ruin their pretend world, I stop the play, they want to watch the video, or they want to purposely do something silly for the camera, which is completely not what I wanted to record. 2- A lot of times, I am actively engaged, getting the doll dressed, or being goalie, and I can't be active and present with the kids while also taking pictures or videos.

What do I have pictures of, that for at least today, I chose to not post? The family day at Disneyland, the kid's little races, a trip to a science center, her Thanksgiving party at school, Thanksgiving at home, and more special, not normal life events.